Posted on 07/05/2005 5:38:56 PM PDT by marron
Miami. Drug trafficking which starts in Colombia and passes through Venezuela on its way to the US and Europe is rising to "higher and higher levels" generating corruption that has reached the Venezuelan military, accuses the newspaper The Miami Herald.
Confiscation of drugs in Venezuela has doubled in the last four years. In 2004 alone it reached 32 tons of cocaine and 12 tons of heroin, according to the newspaper, cited by DPA.
"And there are growing accusations of corruption at the highest levels of the security forces, accompanied by an apparent official indifference", it said.
The Herald quoted an unidentified foreign diplomat of having said that in Caracas "the corruption (from drug trafficking) is reaching levels we have never before seen" in Venezuela.
He referred to the case of Eudo González, who before his murder February 11, 2004, was considered "the biggest traffickere in Venezuela", who carried identification issued by National Guard General Alexis Maneiro. This officer refused to comment to the newspaper.
The report by S. Dudley and P. Gunson recalled reporter Mauro Marcano, who made charges of corruption in the city of Maturín, murdered last September, who revealed "the existence of a group of drug smugglers known as the Cartel of the Suns, referring to the insignias of Venezuelan generals".
The newspaper quoted the same diplomat as describing the cartel as "a considerable group of Army and National Guard generals, especially". This criminal group would be responsible for trafficking "from three to five tons of cocaine per month and 20 to 30 kilos of heroin".
The US embassy in Caracas admitted to the newspaper "some recent stumbles" in the fight against drugs in Venezuela.
Meanwhile, Maneiro was transferred from his job as Commander in Maturín to the staff at the National Guard Academy in Caracas, "without having been interrogated(...) due to the accusations of Marcano", according to Reporters Without Borders, a group based in Paris who denounces abuse against newsmen.
The news article adds that there are growing accusations of corruption paid by drugs at the highest levels of the security forces, accompanied by an apparent official indifference.
"Last month, a Colombian suspected of drug trafficking, wanted in the US, escaped from a Venezuelan police station after having supposedly bribed his guards", for example.
ping
More evidence of the unintended consequences of the disasterous and insane War on Drugs.
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